Friend to the Outcasts

Here's a story of Campus Renewal in Knoxville, Tennessee. It still touches my heart, though it can get get buried in the daily tasks. Meet the Pikes...

Pike's at UT...A Fraternity Finding Jesus at the CHOP

   For 100+ shattered and uprooted Pi Kappa Alpha (Pikes) fraternity brothers, the last place they could have imagined a fraternity meeting was at the UT CHOP. Last year it became an unlikely “beacon of hope” for the outcast fraternity.

   As quickly as news stories around the world told of sordid deeds worthy of official expulsion from the UT campus, CHOP opened its doors for these displaced frat brothers to meet and pray every night. One of them described it as, “The first and the last place we rejects would have to ask to be allowed to meet & pray. They embraced us with loving arms and two full plates of chocolate chip cookies.”
As word spread that the fraternity had found our "four walls with couches," more and more Pike’s showed up each week for prayer and Bible study. Soon the room overflowed with 30-40 young men. “Guys who had been given up on and kicked to the curb were shown a new kind of love at the CHOP - Jesus' love,” notes Pikes chaplain Colin Skinner. “We found common ground to meet, pray, fellowship and be Pikes again, but now immersed in the Lord as we gathered in His name and learned about his son Jesus Christ. Some of these same guys before ‘the incident’ didn’t even know his name. The CHOP is our home and our Bible study with the Pike’s continues to grow.”

Again, this is why I do what I do.